People's Democracy

        Godse And RSS

SAVARKAR moved closer to the RSS after the Gandhi murder. But what about Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse? What were his links with the RSS? Here is what Advani had to say on the question: “Nathuram Godse was a bitter critic of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. His charge was that the RSS had made Hindus impotent. We have had nothing to do with Godse.  The Congress is in the habit of reviving this allegation against us when it finds nothing else.”

Nathuram Godse’s brother Gopal nailed these denials to the counter in a devastating interview (given to Frontline, January 28, 1994):

Q. Were you a part of the RSS?

A. All the brothers were in the RSS. Nathuram, Dattatreya, myself and Govind. You can say we grew up in the RSS rather than in our homes. It was like a family to us.

Q. Nathuram stayed in the RSS? He did not leave it?

A. Nathuram had become a baudhik karyavah (intellectual worker) in the RSS. He said in his statement that he left the RSS. He said it because Golwalkar and the RSS were in a lot of trouble after the murder of Gandhi. But he did not leave the RSS.

Q. Advani has recently said that Nathuram had nothing to do with RSS.

A. I have countered him, saying it is cowardice to say that. You can say that RSS did not pass a resolution, saying that “go and assassinate Gandhi.” But you do not disown him [Nathuram]. The Hindu Mahasabha did not disown him.

In 1944 Nathuram started doing Hindu Mahasabha work when he had been a baudhik karyavah in the RSS.

--- From A G Noorani, Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection, Leftword Books, New Delhi, 2003, pp 138-39.